The Seattle Star Newspaper, November 21, 1921, Page 11

The Story of Carol Kennicott ‘ls BY SINCLAIR LEWIS Copyright, 1920, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, Ino. C= z ee . irl (Continued Fram Saturday) Jnewspapers of sections three thow ot VI }xand miles apart have the same of Doubtiess all small towns, in all| “syndicated features"; the boy in Mentries, in all ages, Carol admit.| Arkansas displays Just such a fam. of m have a tendency to be not only | boyant ready-made sult as t# found but mean, bitter, Infested with | OM Just sur h a boy in Delaware, a oaity. In France or Tibet quite of th iterate the same slang eS Much as in Wyoming or Indiana | a from the same sporting he e timidities are inherent in isola 4, and if one of them is ool ot “ and the other ia & barber, no i But a village in a country which | may surmise which is which, in Staking pains to become altogether| If Kennicott were snatched from ill dardiged and pure, which aspires | Gopher Prairie and instantly con en ucesed Victorian England as the | veyed to a town leagues away, he ut f mediocrity of the world, is no| would not realize it. He would go r merely provincial, no longer}dowa apparently the same Main Be. MY and restful in its leafshad almost gertainly it would be d ignorance. It ix a force seeking | called Main Streey; in the same drug < @ominate the earth, to drain the he would see the same young ‘3 ie and sea of color, to set Dante n serving the same toe-cream soda . boosting Gopher Prairie, and\to|to the eame young woman with the the high gods in Klassy Kol-| Klothes, Sure of itself, it bul-| Sther civilizations, as 4 traveling n in a@ brown derby conquers Wisdom of China &nd tacks ad Buch a society functions admirably until the entire world also ad that the end and joyous pur of living ts to ride in flivvers, make advertising-pictures of dol Watches, and in the twilight to talking not of love and courage, magazines and phonograph rec rds under her arm. Not till he had climbed to his office and found an other sign on the door, another Dr Kennicott inaidé, would he under. | lisements of cigarettes over|stand that something curious had) for centuries dedicated to the| presumably happened, | . of Confuctus Finally, bebind au Ner comments, | Curol saw the fact that the prairie | the large production of cheap)towns no more exist to serve the biles, dollar watehes, and) farmers who are their reasog. of razors, But it is not satl® | existence than do the great ¢ ta | they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unitke the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury a/ stately and. permanent center, but | ve~ atone of the convenience of safety/only this ragged camp. It is a@ he / Aha such a society, such a nation, | viliaation, * determined by the Gopher Prairies. “There we are then,” sald Carol, aia | greatest manufacturer is but a) “The remedy? Ie there any? Critt | 4 r Sam Clark, and all the rotund | cism, perhaps, for the beginning of | tors and presidents are village | ers and bankers grown nine feet | R Tho a Gopher Prairie regards asa part of the Great World res itself to Rome and Vien Mt will not acquire the scientific it, the international mind, which d make it great. It picks at in tion which will visibly procure | or social distigction. Its tion of a community ideal is) the grand manner, the noble| tion, the fine aristocratic pride, cheap labor for the kitchen and | d Increase in the price of | play: ecards on greasy oiljcloth & shanty, and does not know that ete are walking and talking on | gas ~ If all the provincials were as kind as Champ Perry and Sam Clark | would be no reason for desiring town to seek great traditions. is the Harry Haydocks, the Dave . the Jackson Elders, small men crushingly powerful in purpose, viewing iveg as.men of the world, but | themselves men of the cash- ter and the comic film, who the'town a sterile oligarchy. vn | ‘She had sought to be definite in| lyzing the surface ugliness of | Prairies. She asserted | me it is a matter of universal #im- ly: of flimsiness of construc | #0 that the towns resembte fron- camps; of neglect of natural ad- © that the hills are cov- with brush, the lakes shut off failroads, and the creeke lined sobriety of color; rectangularity buildings; and excessive breadth straightness of the gashed ts, 80 that there is no escape fred ot lank, hor any. wind land, for any wind to coax the loiterer along, while breadth which would be majestic of palaces makes the opty te down the | the more mean similarity—that is : sa} expression of the phil- * of safety. Nine-tenths | PRE the American towns are so alike it Is the completest boredom a wander from one to another. F ‘west of Pitteburg, and often, ¢ ft Of it, there is the same lumber the same railroad station, the Ford garage, the same cream- the same box-like houses and ory shops. The new, more con- us houses aré alike in their very at diversity: the same es , the same square houses stucco or tapestry brick. The show the same standardized, iy advertised wares; the “Oh, you dear old Magical ) Nancy and Nick had put on their ‘Sweaters and tams and ran down to | their favorite play ground under the old chestnut tree in the meadow. The tree had been busy all summer | “ahd autums in its own quiet way, al-| tho, after its lovely, feathery, golden | Dlossome had dikappeared in July, no ®he had noticed much what it was doing. But now they were to find out, the! ins were, for suddenly Dick stoopedyand picked up a round, Breeny-yellow, prickly thing cracked Open at one end, and looking awful Ty like @ secret, inwide, like a dark brown, satiny, déliejous secret, and | one evidently that Nick knew about, he gave @ whoop of delight. “Oh, » Nancy!” he cried. “Just ldokee! the first chestnut»burr! Let's | ‘Oben it and get the nuts!” | je carried it over to the big gray ie you already know about, chil- and if you don't I'll tell you! t that was where the Twinn’ ad: res first began, and where an- One was about to begin, al- | some day the farmers will build and terrace. | & cS, DVENTU wae OF INE THINS | carefully, | Ness came a sound they knew well, # the beginning. Ob, there's nothing that attacks the Tribal God Medioc rity that doesn’t help a little . .| and probably there'd” nothing | that helps very much, Perhiape | own their market-towns, (Think of the club they could have} But I'm| afraid I haven't any ‘reform pro- gram.’ Not ang more! The trouble is spiritual, and no league or party can enact a preference for gardens rather than dumping-grounds. There's my confession, Well?” “In other words, all you want is perfection®” said Vida. | “Yes! Why not?" | “How you hate this place! How e4n you expect to do anything with | if you haven't any sympathy?* “Bat I havel And affection. Or | else I woujdn’t fume so. I've learned | that Goplitr Prairie isn't just an eruption on the prairie, as 1 thought first, bug av large ax New York. In ‘ew ¥ 1_ wouldn't know more hen ¥ or fifty people, and know Mat many here. Go on! Say what you're thinking.” “Well, my dear, if I did take all| your notions seriously, it would be| Pretty diseouraging. Imagine how a pe ‘would feel, after working hard fort years and helping to butld up @ nice town, to have you airily flit in and simply say ‘Rotten? Think that's fair?” “Why not? It must be just as discouraging for the Gopher Prairte ite to sem Venice and make com- parivons.” “It would not! I fmagine gondolas are kind of nice to ride in, but we've got better bath-rooms! Rut—— My dear, you're not the only person | in this town who has done some | thinking for herself, although (par- don my rudeness) I'm afraid you think so. I'll admit we luck some things. Maybe our theater isn't as| | secure. good as shows in Paris, All right ture suddenly forced on us—whether | it's street-planning or table-manners of crazy communistic ideas.” Vida sketched what she termed) “practical things that will make a happier and prettier town, but that 40 belomg to our life, that actually are being done.” Of the Thanatopais club she spoke; of the rest-room, the fight againét mosquitos, the cam- paign for mote gardens and shade trees and sewers—matters not fantas- tie and nebulous and distant, but {m- mediate and sure. Carol newer was fantastic and nebulous ough: se eae ee | know, They're good. But if I could | put through all those reforms at once, I'd still want startling, exotic things. Life is comfortable and clean enough here already. And #6 Mushroom!” cried. Nancy tho, of course, that’s a secret that I shouldn't mention perhaps, for Nancy and Nick never so much as} suspected what was in store for them. Nancy ran for a little stone to hammer with and Nick laid his prite on a nice flat place, handling it very you may be sure, for chestnut burrs ate stingy things. Suddenly out of the autumn stifl- voice. “Good morning, my dears!” it said. “I see that Jack Frost has done something vseful at fast. He's help- ing the nut trees to unload their rope!’ “Ob, you dear old Magical Mush- room!’ eried Naney. “Where are you? Oh, there you are! I see you now! We're #0 glad to see you, aren't we, Nick? Where harp you been? You'll have to tell us all about yourself.” How, with Nancy rattling on #0, cotild Mr. Mushroom tell them about the Wairy Queen and Pim Pim? (To Be Continued) (Copyright, 1921, by Seattle Star) [ecswentially cheap TOM, IT MUST LUST 6oT A GAME FoR TMANKSENING DAV WH “THE “ELM STQEET TIGERS”. NOW WE 66TTA | GET IN SOME GOOD PRACTISE ANN THE SEATTLE STAR ri | Guess VLi LET The Duff Alarm Clock BE AuMosT WHAT'S “THE You GET YouR own | _|’M NOT GoinG }} THREE O'CLOCK! | DIFFERENCE? BREAKFAST IN THE | TO GET UP VERY ji! You HAD A MORNING -! Propasiy| EARLY MYSELF G00D TIME WON'T FEEL LIKE SO YOUNEEDN’T DION’T You? GETTING UP. MATS TU STUFF ALEK = FALL ON IT QUICK © 6000} FALL ON IT What it needs is to be lenw secure, more eager, The avic im. provements which I'd like the Thana topails to advocate are Strindberg plays, and classic dancers—exquiaite legs beneath tulle—and (1 can see him so clearly) a thick, black-beard st cynical Frenchman who would about and drink and sing opers and tel bawdy stories and laugh a! r proprieties and quote Rabelais .| and not be ashamed to kiss my hand!" “Huh! Not sure about the rest of it, but I guess that's what you and all the other discontented young women really want—some stranger kissing your hand!" At Carol's | gasp, the old squirrel-like Vida dart ed out and cried, “Oh, my dear, don't take that too seriously, I just mean-——" “L know. You just meant it. Go on. Be good for my soul. Isn't it funny: here we all are-—mo trying to be good for Gopher Prairie’s soul, nd Gopher Prairie trying to be good for my soul, What are my other sins?” “Oh, there's plenty of them. sibly some day we shall have your fat cynical Frenchman (horrible, sneering, tobacco-stained object, ruin ing bis brains and his digestion with vile liquor) but, thank heaven, for a while we'll manage to keep busy with our lawns and pavements! You nee, these things really are coming! The Thanatopaia is getting some- where. And you-—" Her tone ftalicined her worde— “to my great disappointment, are doing leas, not more, than the people you langh at! Sam Clark, on the school-board, is working for better school ventila- tion. Ella Stowbody (whose elocut- ing you always think is so absurd) has persuaded the railroad to share the expense of a parked space station, to do away with that va- | I don't want to see any foreign cul-| cant lot. “You aneer #o easily. I'm sorry, ut I do think there's something in your attitude Especially about religion. sound reformer at all, You're an impossibilist. And youygive up too easily, You gave up fon the new city hall, the anthfly campaign, club papers, the library-board, the dram- atic as#ociation—just because we didn’t graduate into Ibeen the very first thing. You want perfection all at once, Do you know what the finest thing you've done is—aside from bringing Hugh tnto the world? it was the help you gave Dr. Will during baby-welfare weeks You didn’t demand that each baby be a philosopher and artist before you weighed him, as you do with the rest of us. “And now I'm afraid perhaps I'll hurt you, We're going to have a new school building in this town— in just a few years—and we'll have it Without one bit of help or interest from you! “Professor Mott and I and some others have been dinging away at the moneyed men for years, We didn't call on you because you would never stand the pound-pound-pound- ing year after year without one bit of encouragement. And we've won! I've got the promise of everybody who counts that Just as soon as war- conditions permit, they'll vote the bonds for the school house, And we'll have a wonderful building— lovely brown brick, with big win- dows, and agricultural and manual- training departments, When we get it, that'll be tiny answer to all your theories!” “{'m glad. And I'm ashamed I haven't had any part in getting it. But-— Please don’t think I’m un- sympathetic if I ask one question: Will the teachers in the hygienic new building go on informing the children @hat Persia is a yellow spot on the map, and ‘Caesar’ the title of a book of grammatical puzzles?” ViIIT Vida was indignant; Carol was apologetic; they talked for another hour; the éternal Mary and Martha —an immoralist Mary and a reform. fat Martha, It was Vida who con- quered. The fact that she had been left out of the campaign for the new school building disconcerted Carol She laid her dreams of perfection aside, When Vida asked her to take charge of a group of Camp Fire girls, she obeyed, and had definite pleas. ure out of the Indian dances and ritual and costumes, She went more regularly to the Thanatopsis. With Vida as leutenant and tnofficial commander she campaigned for a vil- lage nurse to attend poor families, raised the fund herself, saw to it that the nurse was young and amiable and intelligent. Yet all the while she beheld the burly cynical Frenchman and the diaphanous dancers, as clearly as the ghild sees Its air-born playmates; she rblished the Camp Fire girls not be. cause, in Vida's words, “this @cout training will help #o much to make them good wives,” but because she | “If you must know, you're not a/|- EVERETT TRUE IN THe EVGRGTT, HAVE You NOTICED THE MAKING BOTH SUN AND SON TS MV TURN To FRECKLES / DADDY NOW WATCH FALL ON NEXT, BY CONDO | THE OLD HOME TOWN (TEMS APERS LATELY SAYING THAT KNGe BRESCHES FOR THE MGN (8 THE COMING STYLGE? B DO wou KNOW WHA’ THINK Of --= By Page 526 END OF IDOL STORY “Thats about all,” the-tittle lady-with-thewhitecurla said with a smile, “As soon as father knew what was grieving the In- diana, the idol was put back on its sandy bed, and peace was re- stored. “How many, many years the little idol had been there, who carved it, and what it meant we never knew, “Why the savages did not keep it dug out of the sand, if they knew of Its being there we could not guess.” She paused, and the \children were afraid the reat of her ro membering was going to be in- side her own curly head, but pretty soon she smiled and said, “I did not tell you of what a strange, wild night we had that first night on our new farm, did I? “The house was little and low, with a flatish roof of cedar shakes, and a great chimney al- most all the way across one end. A stone hearth, and the stove in- side the fireplace at one corner. “We had no regular mattreases, but mother made ‘ticks’ and we ence A A gathered dried ferns, pulled out the big stick-like stems, and stuff. ed our beds with the soft, springy leaves of the ferns. “They were very comfortable, and we had worked hard all day with the moving and bedmaking and settling, and by dark every: body was quite ready to lie down on the fern mattresses and go to sleep. “Since reaching the Oregon country we had spent our time in Oregon City, with people about us more or less all of the time. “Out on the new farm there was only the great stillness, and hush of the forest. “The wind whispered in the trees, sleepy bi) called softly to each other, ands we fell asleep one by one, utter etiliness settled down on our new little home, ‘Mother was ‘first to start up wide awake when a curious scratching was heard on the wall outside her window. She listened. “Was it on the wall, or on @ tree not far from the house? “Wather,heard it. There it was again, a scratching, scrambling sort of noise, and all at once, right over their heads, the sound of a heavy body dropping on the roof. (To Be Continued) oe hoped that the Sioux dances would bring subversive color into their dinginess. She helped Ella Stowbody to set out plants in the tiny triangular park at the railroad station; she squatted in the dirt, with a small curved trowel and the most decorous of gar dening gauntlets; she talked to Bila about the public-spiritedness of fuchsias and cannas; and she felt that she was scrubbing a temple de- serted by the gods and empty even of incense and the sound of chant- ing. Passengers looking from trains saw her as a village woman of fad- ing prettiness, incorruptible virtue, and no abnormalitics: the baggage man heard her say, “Oh yes, 1 do think it will be a good example for the children”; and all the while she saw herself running garlanded thru the streets of Babylon, Planting led her to botanizing. She never got much farther than recognizing the tiger Mly and the wild rose,” but she rediscovered Hugh. “What does the buttercup say, mummy?” he cried, his hand full of straggly grasses, his cheek gilded with pollen, She knelt to em. brace him; she affirmed that he made life more than full; she was altogether reconciled . . .« /for an hour. ¢ But she awoke at night to hover Voluble explanations by Rose were | followed by ofders to the waiter to rearrange the table for four. We dined under @ nervous ten- sion. | MeMasters was simply charming to Motherdear, Eulogies of my work embarrassed me, but I could tell that he wasn’t making much of a hit with her. dinner, Motherdear was ost dis- agreeable. Only once or twice in my life had I seen her in such an | unexplainable mood. | First she cried over me, then she | kissed me, and then she fell into .a long silence. | “What worries you, Motherdear?” | 1 clasped her soft fingers in \nine, “Cyrus! she announced abruptly. “Cyrus?” 1 repeated in astonish- ment. | “He phoned me that he had fixed jup the engine of your car in a \ jiffy. But that was after you had Heft with Rose. He said nothing was the matter with the engine. He advised me to fire our new chauffeur immediately. He didn't want to say On the way home from Rose’s| ' THE PRESIDENTS THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION _ ! WASREAD WITH GREAT INTEREST AT ROBINSONS STORE TODAT— Confessions of a Movie Star (Copyright, 1991, Seattle Star) CHAPTER XVI—MOTHERDEAR EXPLAINS A LOT more. Just suggested that a word to the wise was sufficient.” “You made him explain?” “Finally he hinted at some kind of |a frame-up. He said I'd better come for the car and stop here and get you. Or if I said so, he'd come for | you and take you home.” “I'm sure I don't. see what you were worrled about Motherdear’ “I'm glad to say you don’t, Per- jhaps I'm confused myself. Perhaps Cissy was excited. I can’t come to {any conclusion. And so let's talk |about the frocks which were deliver ed today.” | That settled it. I wns too exhaust- ed to care about dresses, to’ care jabout anything but getting home to imy bed. | Motherdear returned to the subject | before I went to sleep: | “Little girl! McMasters Is a mar. }ried man. T suppose I'm old. fashioned and not used to the man- ners of some movie people, or the freedom of women and men in the same business. Nor the familiarity, I can't forget that MeMasters has half a dozen little children in his GOOD MORNING YA WANNA BUST TH’ ONLY i me! * BY BLOSSER fr NUTIN'!! BY STANLEY V t i t home. One daughter fe about your age. Now my conscience compels. me to believe that McMasters ought jto spend his spare time with his | family.” | “And he ought not to go out to little dinners without his wife. I don't need to be told that, Mother: dear. I guess any girl knows that, But I'm sure you understand how I happened to be there?” “TI can trust you, darling? Mother dear kissed’ me tenderly, thought @ minute, and continued: “T can't take you out of the movies, darling. It's your future, your for tune, not mine, that's to be made 1 can’t interfere. But I guess we'll |both take good care not fo help Mo | Masters to neglect his family.” “What did Cyrus mean by & ‘frame-up'?” “Well — possibly —that was his slang way of saying the new chauf- |feur was tricking us. Cyrus seems to have a remarkable knowledge of cars. He was curious—and spoiled the fellow's trick.” (To Be Continued) tiptoed into the bathroom and, by the mirror in the door of the medi- cine cabinet, examined her pallid face, Waan't she growing visibly older in ratio as Vida grew plumper and younger? Wasn’t her nose sharper? Wasn't her neck granulated? she |stwred and choked. She wag only thirty. But the five years sin¢e her marriage—had they not gone by as hastily and stupidly as though she had been under ether; would time not slink past till death? She pounded her fist on the cool enam- eled rim of the bah tub and raged mutely «gainst the indifferent gods: “T don’t care! I won't endure it! ‘They lie so—Vida and Will and junt Bessiothey tell me I ought to be atistied with Hugh and a good home and planting seven nastur- tiums in a station garden! I am I! When I die the world will be anni- hilated, as far as I'm concerned. I am I! I’m not content to leave the wea and the ivory towers to others. IT want them for me! Damn Vida! Damn all of them! Do they think they can make me believe that a dis: play of potatoes at Howland & Gould's is enough beauty and strangeness?” (Continued: Tomorrow.) Retween 1912 and 1919, nearly ing death, She crept away from the | $4,000,000,000 was added to railway | (cll’s drug stores and by leading drug- bumy of bedding that was Kennicott;] property values in the United States, | gisus everywhere THIRTY YEARS’ SEARCH ENDED Seattle Man Says He Had to Lay Off From Work Days at a Time “I hunted high and low for thirty years for @ medicine to reach my stomach trouble, but never found it until. I ran across Tanlac,” said Charles Benham, 6254 49th ave. 8. W., Seattle, “I contracted lead poison thirty years ago and it almost wrecked my whole system, Of recent years 1 had been in such a weak and run-down condition that I frequently had to lay off from work for three or four days at a time and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing would help me, “What Tanlac has done for me has simply been a revelation, I am not Nke the same man now and I eat, sleep and feel better than I have in thirty years. I had no idea that a Tanlac is sold in Seattle at Bar. medicine could ever do as much for} -|& man as Tanlac has done for me,” TREE TEA CEYLON is the one high grade tea in the world that sells for so little money licious.—Advertisement, Daddy, Bolét’s Butterhorns ure de §